🤡 Warning: mild spoilers ahead. 🤡
1. For Joker, Joaquin Phoenix went on an extreme diet and lost 52 pounds.
2. And the role of Arthur Fleck was conceived with Phoenix in mind.
3. However, Phoenix said that he did not refer to any past iterations of the character when developing his role.
4. When preparing for the role, Phoenix studied the movements of iconic silent film stars like Buster Keaton and Ray Bolger.
5. It's pretty blatant, but a lot of late '70s and early '80s "character study" films served as major influences on the film and you can see many visual similarities.
THE JOKER X TAXI DRIVER
Phillips referred to films like Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy, Serpico, Raging Bull, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at the Venice Film Festival as particular influences.
6. The film's storyline, following a failed stand-up comedian, came from the famous Batman: The Killing Joke graphic novel.
7. And the silent film The Man Who Laughs was also another major influence on the movie.
8. Arthur's clown makeup was purposefully made to look "antique" — his lips were made a reddish-brown to resemble blood.
9. The script often changed on the day, before shooting, and the actors would have to adapt — which they did really well — and even improvise their characters' dialogue.
10. Before filming, Phillips told Phoenix that he envisioned Joker's laughter as something that's almost painful.
11. There are at least three different laughs the Joker does: the "affliction" laugh, the "one of the guys" laugh, and then the "authentic joy" laugh at the end.
12. Although Robert DeNiro is Phoenix's favorite American actor, the two hardly talked on set.
13. In fact, there was a little awkward tension between the two because DeNiro insisted the cast do a read-through before filming his scenes, while Phoenix did not want to do any read-throughs.
14. Phillips actually asked composer Hildur Guðnadóttir to start writing music off the script, which is not normally done in movies.
15. And Guðnadóttir's music was often played on set to help set the mood.
16. In fact, her music basically changed the bathroom dancing scene from how it was written in the script.
17. Although many past actors went to dark places IRL to play the role of the Joker, Phoenix says he didn't have that experience.
